Event

Jaspar Lepak and Avery Hill

Singer-songwriters JASPAR LEPAK and AVERY HILL team up for a memorable show celebrating Lepak's new CD, Close to Me (2017), and featuring both artists' rich body of work.

JASPAR LEPAK is a folk/Americana songwriter whose remarkable gift for melody is only surpassed by her poetry. A child of the Sonoran Desert, her songs are deeply influenced by the many places she has called home: Tucson, Minneapolis, Durban (S. Africa), and currently Seattle. Sweeping across landscapes with an emotional depth that is extraordinary, her lyrics expose a brave vulnerability while her clear, pure voice touches the heart. Lepak started writing songs in 2002 while living in Minneapolis. Between 2004 and 2009, she recorded five albums, and in the fall of 2009, she moved to Durban, South Africa with her husband Kale. Her music found an enthusiastic audience, and in 2011, she recorded Forgiving Wind which Rolling Stone South Africa hailed as an album full of "beauty and original charm. Lepak moved to Seattle in 2012 and released her 8th album Close to Me in September of 2017. "Close to Me" is a solo project recorded over a weekend in Seattlejust two weeks before her daughter was born! Learn more at www.jasparlepak.com

Family legend has it that AVERY HILL sang before she talked. Since stepping out as a songwriter in 2012, she has made a name for herself with her singular style of "story-singing", integrating stories of the past into her observations of life today. Her first album, Fare Thee Well (2012), was featured on River City Folk, hosted by Tom May, who considers Hill "an extraordinary young talent". Her most recent album, Dreams & Ghosts: A Family Album (2015), which jumped to the Top 10 of all the Folk DJ lists, features songs inspired by her family's history, providing musical snapshots of different times in history, reflecting on the universal themes of growing up and being brave. "Hello & Goodbye" won the Singer/Songwriter category of the West Coast Songwriters International Song Contest in 2015, and "Lover's Leap" was selected in 2017 by Portland's Resonate Choral Arts to be arranged for performance with an all-female choir. When she is not writing, performing, and touring, Hill is most often inspiring the musician in everyone in her teaching with Music Together, with Artichoke's Outreach Program, and teaching ukulele with her own company, Song by Song (TM). Learn more at www.averyhilltunes.com and www.learnsongbysong.com